On Tuesday 16 May, at a high-level summit in Brussels, the Commission renewed its support to Western Balkan countries to fight against arms trafficking and ensure the security of the region and the EU.
A Ministerial Conference brought together European and Western Balkan stakeholders to discuss the implementation of the 2020-2025 EU Action Plan on firearms trafficking and the Regional Roadmap on combating illicit arms trafficking in the Western Balkans.
According to the European Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson, in the four years since the Action Plan was launched, “22,000 weapons have already been seized, 750,000 rounds of ammunition and 2,400 explosives”. “You have destroyed more than 41,000 surplus weapons and more than 15 million surplus rounds of ammunition. Individuals have voluntarily surrendered nearly 140,000 firearms and 60,000 rounds of ammunition”, the Commissioner added, welcoming the fact that “all Western Balkan partners have put in place structures and strategies to guide their action” and that almost all of these countries have strengthened the work of firearms focal points with central analysis bodies that support firearms investigations.
The Commissioner noted, however, that “more needs to be done to reduce the illegal possession of weapons, prevent the diversion of their use and launch awareness campaigns”.
For his part, the High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, recalled that the EU has invested more than €38 million since 2002 to help these countries fight against arms trafficking and a new envelope of €4 million was agreed last November.
Last November, the EU renewed its support for a “Regional Roadmap for a sustainable solution to the illegal possession, misuse and trafficking of SALW/firearms and their ammunition in the Western Balkans by 2024”.
The objectives of the roadmap are to ensure that by 2023 “arms control legislation is in place, fully harmonised with the EU regulatory framework and other related international obligations and standardised across the region; by 2024, ensure that existing arms control policies and practices in the Western Balkans are evidence based and intelligence led; by 2024, significantly reduce illicit flows of firearms, ammunition and explosives into, within and beyond the Western Balkans or significantly reduce the supply, demand and misuse of firearms”.
The conference came days after two deadly shootings in Serbia and the Serbian president's call for his citizens to voluntarily disarm. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)